This time it's serious. After the false announcement due to the hacking of the account of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) on the social network The regulatory and supervisory body has authorized the marketing of ETFs linked to bitcoin, that is, exchange-traded funds whose price follows the evolution of the spot price of said cryptocurrency. ETFs thus provide a simple way to invest in bitcoin without having to buy said asset directly on an exchange such as Binance or Coinbase.
Among all cryptocurrencies, bitcoin has always had a special, more respectable treatment, although it also has staunch detractors. It is not considered a security, but an asset and that differentiates it in terms of regulation and supervision.
In any case, passing the SEC filter with these new investment vehicles represents their crowning in the investment universe. ETFs are investment products that track the valuation of an asset such as a commodity, currency, bond, stock or stock index. They are launched in hundreds, they have become a very common investment, even for individuals, but none referenced to spot bitcoin had yet been authorized. Yes, there are some referenced to bitcoin futures, but they concentrated extra complexity (a cryptocurrency, a derivative and a synthetic product) that makes their popularization difficult.
Supporters of cryptocurrencies believe that the novelty will attract billions of dollars of investment in said crypto asset, by making it accessible to anyone in a simple way to bet on the rise or fall of its price. Therefore, since the supervisor began to study the authorization of these new products, the price of bitcoin has skyrocketed.
Until now, the supervisor had rejected applications to market ETFs linked to bitcoin spot trading on the grounds that they were vulnerable to fraud and market manipulation.
The SEC is one of the organizations that have until now been making life miserable for most of the sector. Although it has acted late and without avoiding scandals, multi-million dollar holes and scams, such as the fall from grace of Sam Bankman-Fried and the bankruptcy of its FTX market, the supervisor has been pursuing cryptocurrencies to impose strict supply requirements and securities trading. This has led to sanctioning proceedings and fines against markets, promoters, advertisers and other actors in the crypto universe.
Hence the hacking of his account on the social network X on Tuesday had a special charge of irony. The regulator's decision was expected this week, which has increased the credibility of the false announcement. “The SEC today gives its approval for bitcoin ETFs to be listed on all US markets. “The approval of bitcoin ETFs will be subject to future monitoring and additional measures in order to ensure adequate protection for investors,” said the fake tweet from the supervisor, which also featured a photo of its president, Gary Gensler, posted to 4:11 p.m. on the East Coast, six hours more in mainland Spain.
Gensler himself was in charge of raising the alarm with a message from his account, published at 4:25 p.m.: “The Twitter account @SECGov has been manipulated and an unauthorized tweet has been published. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of exchange-traded bitcoin spot products,” his message read. The SEC regained control of his account on the social network X and deleted the original tweet, but gave no further explanation of what happened.
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